THE HARDEST WORK IN THE WORLD.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18266, 27 December 1924, Page 15

THE HARDEST WORK IN THE WORLD.

Thoxe arc toany tasks which cannot vet. be done entirely by machinery and in which man-power must be used (write? n correspondent in il London paper.) Logging is an instance in point. You can cut down trees by steam sj'.v, but when you got them to the river it takes men to run them flown, to the sea.

In all tho long list of human employment- there is nrobably no other which entails such tremendous muscular strain, such a combination of strength and activity as is required in running logs down a river swollen by the spring flood?.

The water, white with ?nov broth, runs fit. tremendous 'speed, ard tor miles the loggers may have to follow at a run. Then comes .'i- sudden .jam, and the men in their caulked boots have Id leap from lop to log, balancing for dear life above the flood, and using their "peavies"' with desperate energy to foree out Iho key an'] loosen the ever-piling mass liehiud them. This savage .struggle may last for three woks on end, during which food and sleep arc seized only in snatches, and the workers' clothes are never dry on their hacks. A well-known writer once told mc that oyster dredging on the American coast was the hardest work in the world. The two dredges were wound in by hand, and that everlasting winding, balanced on u swaying deck, was wicked work. The moment one dredge was aboard tho oysters had to be "culled." and the whole eight men of tlie crew were working against time from dawn till dark. The dock labourer's job i 3 another which entails tremendous physical effort. A steamer's time is money, and ■when cargo is being discharged not one moment must be wasted by any of those engaged. The amount of work that can be done in one dnv i$ almost incredible. I remember an inquest on a dock labourer who died suddenly on a Chelsea' urbitf at which it was stated that on tho day of his death he had unloaded from a barge no fewer than 36,000 woodpaving block?.